It is round two for Ed Miliband as he steps into the ring with another business boss amid his policies being attacked for a second time.

The first brawl started when the boss of high street retailer Boots, Stefano Pessina, said that it would be a "catastrophe" if the Labour government were to win the next election as it would "not be helpful" to business.

With the Tories then adding another blow saying that politicians should get behind, and not attack, "wealth creators".

But Mr Miliband has managed to deflect a few of these political punches as he pointed out that Stefano Pessina "lives in Monaco and is actually avoiding tax".

The Labour leader said the Boots boss should "pay his taxes" and not "lecture people" on how to vote.

Round two comes today as the man haild to have "saved M&S" has called Mr Miliband "a seventies throwback" and claims his "business-bashing" could put off investors.

The former Marks and Spencer boss Stuart Rose was once a member of Gordon Brown's business council and has been given a life peerage last year by the Prime Minister.

Lord Rose defended Mr Pessina's right to speak out and said Mr Miliband had "blown apart" decades of political consensus, and that the business sector should be cherished as an engine of growth.

He said: "Even if you disagree with him, I don't think it is necessary to have personal attacks on Stefano in this way - particularly for a guy who has really ploughed a lot of money into the UK and is doing now to make Boots a world force."